Advances in Bolometer Technology for Fundamental Physics

Abstract

In the last decade, cryogenic bolometers have provided increasingly improved resolution and sensitivity in particle and radiation detectors. Thermal particle detectors have proven their outstanding capabilities in different fields of fundamental physics, especially in rare event detection. Cryogenic incoherent detector arrays designed to detect millimeter-wave photons have helped enable precision measurements of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), providing a unique probe of early universe physics and helping to constrain parameters of particle physics such as the sum of the neutrino masses. We review the latest achievements of cryogenic particle detectors for direct detection searches for dark matter and double-[Formula: see text] decay, as well as for CMB measurements, and we discuss expected improvements aiming to increase the sensitivities of these experiments. An important challenge is the large-scale implementation of arrays of detectors such as transition edge sensors, especially in CMB polarization experiments. We describe the challenges of scaling up to these larger arrays, including fabrication throughput and development of new multiplexing electronics.